


Unhitch and Crumble Down

by voleuse



Category: Logan (2017 Movie)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 00:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13042998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: Tunis and Carthage were close but not the same city.Not with a bang, but with a whimper.





	Unhitch and Crumble Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/gifts).



> Set, largely, prior to the movie.

**i. _the sky won't stoop_**  
Decades could pass--and did--but Logan would never feel comfortable taking responsibility for anyone outside of himself. The only reason he’d managed to survive so far, and so long, was because his body, his bones, his blood, wouldn’t allow him so much as a _nay_. And he’d learned long ago that he didn’t mind the pain.

Somehow, some way, Xavier wrangled him into this, this _teacher_ thing, as if survival could be imparted through prolonged exposure to Logan, to the artifact that he tried not to be. But Xavier’s surety echoed in Logan’s mind, doubling up, canceling out, resonating. So he stayed. He watched the students, awkward and impossible, let go of the terror of being a mutant, of being dangerous, being _other_. Sometimes, they were drawn into battle together, alongside him as his peers, and the crackle-tension of watching them ricochet and break caught hold of him. They were his students, and they were children.

That was why he didn’t notice, for so long, how mutants had dwindled in the world. They each and all looked so damned young to him.

 

**ii. _the coming-into-being_**  
“It’s happening to you, too, isn’t it?” 

“What?” Logan felt self-conscious, his phone at his ear, trying to look nonchalant in the hallway while Raven hissed at him from across the continent. (He assumed. She said Seattle, but the stability of locations was more mutable to her than most others.) “What are you talking about?” Theresa and Alison strolled past him, Alison flicking sparks at him when he scowled in their direction.

“Logan.” She took a breath. “I have scars. I shift, and they’re still there. Over and over.”

“I mean--”

“Is it happening to you?”

He lifted his left hand, let his claws slide out halfway, then back in again. The familiar sting, the coagulation of--

“Logan.”

“Yeah.” He did it again. Watched the blood bead and trickle against his skin. “I have to find Hank.”

“Wait. Have you,” Raven cleared her throat. “Have you talked to Charles lately?”

 

**iii. _more creaturely than is proper_**  
Some nights, Logan would jolt out of bed, two claws snicking into the air as waking balance gripped him. When he was lucky, he didn’t remember what pushed him out from sleep.

But most nights, the thrum of that last night at the Institute rattled his bones, and he could hear Neg whimpering, her fingers curling against her scalp as she tried to contain herself while the others shook apart around her. Her eyes met his, and it was the first and only time he ever saw her scared, and Neg, _Ellie_ , nodded at him, and the air around her rippled as she started to lose control, and Logan gnashed his teeth and she spread her arms open, and--

 

Nights in the desert were nothing like Westchester. Trains rattled far in the distance, and all his students were dead and gone.

 

**iv. _a doublet, a doublet_**  
They’d found Caliban in a pharmacy. Or, rather, they were ransacking a pharmacy when he appeared. “Well,” he said.

“Yeah. Caliban, right?” Logan spared him a glance before returning his squint to the rows of plastic tubes in front of him. “Lend a hand?”

“Ah. I suppose,” Caliban said, delicately taking the sheaf of prescriptions Logan proffered. “Not quite my area of expertise.”

Logan looked at him again, hitching his shoulder up, emphasizing the three bullet holes in the cloth, as well as a large burn that he actually didn’t remember experiencing. “We’ve got about ten minutes before that alarm starts up again.”

“Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments,” Charles murmured, “will hum about mine ears.” He rolled back in his chair, pill bottles rattling in both his hands.

“Is that,” Logan straightened, “are you actually hearing something, or--”

Caliban snorted. 

“Hell.” Logan swept all the bottles from one shelf into a paper sack, and a siren began to wail, somewhere nearby. 

“I’ve got a truck,” Caliban said, “if you want.” He tilted his head toward Charles, and Charles twisted in his chair, giving Caliban better access to the handles. 

“Fine.” Logan took another armful of bottles for good measure. “How’d you find us, anyway?” Caliban raised an eyebrow. Logan grunted, shook his head. “Why, I mean.”

“It’s like magnets.” Caliban kicked the remnants of the emergency exit door open wider. “Doesn’t feel right if we’re not aligned.”

The siren grew closer, and Logan hopped into the truck; it was missing its doors. “I’ll drive.”

“Do you know where we’ll be going?” Caliban helped Charles onto the bench, then folded the chair and tossed it into the back.

“I don’t know.” Logan looked back at Charles.

Charles smiled. “Then, away.”

 

**v. _an ordinary consolation_**  
They stopped because Charles said he needed air, not more of _those damn pills_ , and Logan figured they had to eat and piss, and he had to _think_ , because just because he was dying, probably, didn’t mean that they had to along with him. So they pulled over behind a wreck of a motel, and they tumbled out of the truck more or less intact.

At some point, the kid had acquired a tube of Pringles, and insisted on eating them in the most annoying way possible. Logan flexed his fists, claws popping in and out. Sting. Bleed. Scab. The kid bared her teeth at him, but half her face was covered in crumbs. 

Logan rummaged in his jacket pockets, found the pills. He handed one to Charles, and Charles threw it back at him. Spat. Logan gave him another one. Charles threw it back at him.

“Charles,” he said, and he wanted to walk away. He wanted to turn back and fight. 

He wanted to be alone.

Charles let out a long breath. “Now my charms are all o’erthrown,” he murmured. “Logan, could you please--”

Logan retrieved a third pill. Handed it to Charles. 

Charles put it into his mouth. Swallowed. Coughed. He nodded, but looked over at the kid instead of meeting Logan’s eyes. “I’m glad,” he said, then coughed again. “I’m glad to be here with you, my friend.”

“Yeah.” Logan let himself relax for a moment, crumpled slowly and sat on the dirt next to Charles. He looked up at the sky, at the stars. At the kid, tossing the cardboard tube into the air and then snarling, slicing it into shreds. “Yeah. I’m glad,” he paused, “I’m glad to be here, with you.”

And Charles reached out, his hand first hesitant, then firm on Logan’s shoulder. And the night was quiet, and cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and headings adapted from Jana Prikryl's poem, "The Tempest." Plus bonus Shakespeare and TS Eliot.


End file.
